


Words That I Can't Say

by lady_ragnell



Series: Love Song [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-21
Updated: 2012-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena's got a massive crush on her politics TA, and Mithian's doing absolutely nothing to discourage it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words That I Can't Say

**Author's Note:**

> Happens concurrently with the other two pieces in this series, but again can be read as a standalone.
> 
> Title from "I Owe You a Love Song" by Shiny Toy Guns.

About the time her TA gets halfway through her lecture on the importance of marriage alliances in the Middle Ages, Elena has to fumble out her phone under her desk and text Arthur. _Think I may have to marry Mithian Fitzroy,_ she types, or thinks she types since looking away from the front of the room is a bit unthinkable at the moment. Hopefully she didn’t just send Arthur gibberish.

Her phone doesn’t buzz with a return text until the exact minute her class is supposed to end, because of course Arthur won’t text her while she’s in class (and more to the point, of course he knows exactly when all her lectures are). _Calming breaths. Come to the student center after and I’ll buy you cocoa._

She sort of hates him a little sometimes for being so collected about things. It’s why this awkward crush on Elyan’s sister is so delightful. He’s making her a _mix CD_. And making Elena listen to it every time he changes the playlist to make sure it isn’t “too much.”

Still, annoyed as she is with him for undoubtedly having that patronizing look he gets on his face, Elena decides she’ll accept the cocoa and packs her things up to leave the lecture hall. On the way out, though, she gets caught in a tangle of students (mostly lads, of course, she isn’t the only one who’s shallow, then) standing about thanking Mithian for her lecture and asking inane questions.

She catches Mithian’s eye as she shoulders her way through the press of people and towards the door of the lecture hall, where Doctor Annis is waiting, looking as impressive and intimidating as ever. “Thanks for the lecture,” she mumbles, since Mithian’s between admirers and she sort of feels like she has to say something.

Instead of just nodding and being gracious, as she has done to everyone else who hasn’t had a question to ask, Mithian smiles at her. “I’m glad to hear it. You’re … Elena O’Shea, right? I think I have everyone’s names memorized at this point and there are only three women in the course this term.”

Elena clutches her satchel and does not swoon. “Um, yes, that’s me.”

“And you’re reading politics, right?” Elena nods. “Good, I’m glad to hear it. There are never enough women in this field, whether they’re planning to be politicians or academics or anything else. That’s why I like working with Doctor Annis, and why I was so glad to get the chance to give this lecture—it’s my dissertation subject, and I think it’s important to bring women’s roles in the history of politics to light.”

“I like that you didn’t just talk about Eleanor of Aquitaine, either,” Elena offers. “I mean, she’s amazing, but when she’s the only one people ever mention in this context it makes her seem like the exception when she wasn’t really, just other women went about things a bit more quietly.”

Mithian _beams_ at her. “Oh, I like you. Yes, that, precisely. I’ve got a book you might like, if you’ve got an interest there, Doctor Annis gave it to me when I told her what I was thinking of for my post-grad. Are you planning on going into the field?”

“I’m, um, not sure? I mean, my dad’s an MP and I think he’d like me to follow in his footsteps, but I’d much rather do something in the background, I like seeing how things work, but either way I might do some post-grad first.” Some of the lads waiting to fall all over themselves seem to be getting restless. “But I’m only in my second year,” she hurries on, “so I’m not making decisions yet. Anyway, I ought to get going.”

“Of course. You ought to come by my office hours one day, Elena. I’ll lend you that book.” Mithian gives her one last bright grin and turns to the next person in line, and Elena almost runs into three people on her way out of the room, one of them being Doctor Annis, who just gives her a long-suffering look and gestures her out.

Arthur is waiting for her in the study nook in the student center that they claimed for their own last year, a warm to-go cup of cocoa next across the table from him while he sips at his own coffee and scowls a bit at something he’s scribbling down (a closer glance proves this to be a playlist for the CD, which means he’s finally finalized the tracks, thank heavens). He looks up and grins when he sees her. “So ought I be preparing my best man speech? Has the lovely Miss Fitzroy accepted your suit?”

“Shut up,” she grumbles, but takes a sip of cocoa nonetheless. He’s got the sort with a bit of raspberry in it, which means he knows she’s a bit distressed. “Can we forget that text happened?”

“No, because now I can mock you with it whenever you try to mock me about Gwen.”

“You’ve met her _three times_ and decided you’re in true love with her when she kept your shirt from being doused with coffee,” Elena points out.

Arthur goes pink, though he’ll deny it to his dying day. Elena misses Morgana, who would undoubtedly have him squirming with shame by now, crushes on politics TAs entirely forgotten. In the absence of Morgana, though, he gets himself under control quite quickly. “Yes, and you going from starry-eyed but manageable admiration to plans for proposing marriage to Mithian is entirely reasonable?”

“It was a really good lecture,” she mumbles, looking down at her lap, and knows Arthur’s remembering her hopeless crush on their Year Ten English teacher just because of the way she talked and got so excited about her subjects. And she wasn’t even as gorgeous as Mithian is. “Shut up.” She puts her face in her hands. “She invited me to office hours. So she could lend me a book.”

“Oh, Ellie,” he says, and very kindly doesn’t say anything else.

*

Suddenly, it seems like Mithian is _everywhere_. Elena goes to office hours because, as Morgana points out when Elena calls her in Paris in a panic since none of the men in their lives are being useful, even if she didn’t have a horrible schoolgirl crush it would be good to go for her academic career (Morgana is very bad at being soothing). They chat about the book and about women in political history for nearly an hour before Mithian remembers a meeting and shoos her out with a smile and tells her to come back.

Then it turns out that Mithian goes to the same coffee stand Elena and Arthur go to, and she doesn’t notice them in their nook but Elena gets in the habit of looking up when it’s Mithian’s usual time to get a drink (medium latte, sometimes with cinnamon, and no, Elena’s not a stalker at all). Arthur, luckily, doesn’t have very much time to mock her because he gives Gwen his mix CD and then, to both of their shock, gets one back that makes him grin the whole way through (and he will say later that he enjoyed the Josh Groban ironically but it’s a dirty lie and if he and Gwen get married she is going to tell this story at their wedding). It takes her two days to harass him into sending Gwen an e-mail to continue his courtship that way and not with endless CDs, and she has to enlist Morgana’s help on it.

That night, they go to Leon and Elyan’s off-campus flat for dinner, as they sometimes do when the thought of eating one more soggy plate of unidentifiable goop becomes too much for them. “Gwen called me today,” Elyan starts as his opening sally, and all of them watch with interest as Arthur’s ears go red. “Really, Penn? Of all the people at this school, you pick my _sister_? My recently-heartbroken sister?”

“I am being a perfect gentleman,” says Arthur, affronted.

“So was Lance,” mutters Elyan, before Leon puts his hand on his shoulder and calms him down. He probably knows more of that story than the rest of them and Elena kicks Arthur’s ankle before he can ask.

“Anyway, don’t look at me,” says Arthur when Elyan continues to look suspicious in his general direction, “Elena’s the one stalking her TA.”

“Throw me under the bus, why don’t you,” she says, and wonders if stuffing her face would stop the inevitable interrogation. She doubts it, since Leon’s already looking to go into worried overprotective mode. “It’s nothing, I’m not stalking her, can we go back to talking about how Arthur is a thirteen-year-old girl and made a mix CD for his beloved and she made him one back and he still hasn’t got the nuts to ask her on a date?”

That distracts Elyan, at least. “Wait, Gwen made a mix CD? That doesn’t sound like—”

“Ellie, who’s this TA and do we need to talk to her? Or you?”

Someday she is going to break Leon of his habit of treating her like his fragile little sister or something equally embarrassing, just because they’ve been friends since before she even knew Arthur. “Look, she’s probably not even gay, it’s going nowhere, I’m just being silly, and Mithian is lovely but it’s really not going to happen, so I am not stalking her.”

Leon blinks at her, bewildered. “Mithian? Wait, Mithian Fitzroy? And you think she’s not gay?”

Arthur and Elena both stare at him. “Wait, what?” she manages.

“Honestly, if the two of you _ever_ went to LGBT soc events,” says Leon. “Mithian was the president my first year, before she graduated. She still shows up to events sometimes.”

Elena’s pretty sure she’s got a stupid expression on her face because it just makes no sense at all that she’s actually got a crush on someone who’s gay for once, especially when it’s _Mithian_. It still won’t happen because of the TA thing and the Mithian being gorgeous and probably having a secret gorgeous girlfriend hidden away in her undoubtedly perfectly pristine flat thing, but the fact that there’s even a tiny chance is frankly mind-boggling. This doesn’t happen to her. “I think you broke her,” Arthur says eventually.

She whacks him on the arm. “Git. Um. Still not happening, but thank you for giving me a glimmer of hope that will make it impossible to concentrate during class for the rest of term, Leon.”

Elyan grins. “Well, that just means you’ll have to go to office hours, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up, I hate all of you,” she says, but she can’t help laughing. “It’s like you want us to be a bad porn scenario!” Leon and Arthur make the identical face that they made when she drunkenly confessed to losing her virginity on a sixth form camping trip. Elyan just laughs his arse off.

“Well, you have to seduce her,” he points out. “She won’t do it, she’ll be afraid she’ll get fired.”

“Oh God, there’s just no way this is going to end well,” she informs her plate, and all three of the lads start laughing.

*

The next day she nearly runs into Mithian while she’s got her face buried in a book, on her way back to her room from a tutorial, and wouldn’t even notice beyond a distracted apology if Mithian didn’t grab her arm. “Hello there,” she says, laughing a bit when Elena goes wide-eyed and drops her book, and then actually bends to pick it up for her. “What are you reading? Not the one I gave you, the cover’s different.”

“Oh, yes, sorry, I ought to return that to you.” Mithian turns over the cover and raises her eyebrows, because of course Elena couldn’t be reading something that would make her look intelligent and worldly, she’s got to be re-reading sodding _Black Beauty_ for the tenth time because she’s stressed and needed a bit of comfort reading. “I’ve not read this for years.”

“Oh, um. I like to have a reread sometimes. I like horses. My father keeps one for me, but I don’t get out to see him nearly enough, which is a pity. I’m a good rider, thought about going into it professionally when I was younger, but—didn’t. And you didn’t need to hear that, sorry, here, let me take my book back.” She snatches it to her chest and tries not to look as mortified as she feels.

Mithian just smiles like Elena’s a whole basket of puppies. “I think it’s _lovely_. I’m a rider too, actually, though I never thought to do it professionally. It was always just my way of getting away from things.” She nods at the book. “And considering my bookmark’s in the middle of _I Capture the Castle_ right now, I won’t blame you for a bit of comfort reading.”

“Right, well. Good.” Elena wants to beat her head on the nearest wall, since this is likely not convincing Mithian that she’s anything but a silly student with a crush. Which she is, of course, but she’s trying not to think of that. “So, I should probably go. Things to do, and all.”

That makes Mithian step back, smile going a bit more guarded. “Yes, of course, sorry to have kept you. I’ll see you in class, and remember that my office hours are always open and I’d love to have more chats about the marriage alliances once you finish that book.”

Elena waves her off weakly and then grabs for her phone the second she’s out of earshot to call Arthur. “Emergency!” she hisses the second he answers.

“What’s going on?”

“Where are you?”

“In the library. Are you—”

“So I saw Mithian,” she blurts, because Arthur sounds impatient and he’s got plenty going on what with his weird e-mail correspondence with Gwen, but she needs someone to tell her to breathe and not read into things.

“Yes? And she …” He leaves the sentence open for her to fill in.

She doesn’t disappoint. “Stopped me when I would have even noticed her walking by and talked about books and made a point of telling me to stop by during office hours.”

“Seriously? Christ. Do you want me to come get you or something?”

She really, really shouldn’t, but she’s a bit strung out and Mithian needs to stop giving her _hope_ or this is all going to end terribly. “Um, maybe? Leon and Elyan are both in class and Morgana yells when I call her too much or I wouldn’t interrupt your studying, but. Could you come?”

“Yes, I can always study later. Just trying to get ahead on my paper.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you in our usual spot? I’m not too far from there.”

“Okay, Ellie, I’ll see you in a bit,” he says, fond and exasperated, and hangs up on her.

By the time he gets to their study nook, she’s bought their drinks in apology for dragging him away from his study, and she feels even better about it when he proves to be looking very annoyed indeed. “I’m really sorry to have interrupted your studying,” she says, trying to look as pitiful as she can, once the coffee has softened his expression a bit.

“I was just trying to get ahead, like I said, the paper isn’t due for weeks yet and I’ve been reading critical theory on the _Canterbury Tales_ for years.” Which of course he has, because he’s a terrible geek for all he doesn’t seem it.

“Then you should be jumping at the chance to put it off a bit longer,” she says, taking a sip of her cocoa, which is at just the right temperature.

Arthur hums thoughtfully. “I’d just met up with a friend of Gwen’s, was all—Merlin, I’ve met him a time or two but I don’t think you have.” Elena blinks at him, since that has no relevance whatsoever unless he was talking about courting Gwen with this Merlin. “Anyway, I was just distracted talking to him, is all. I’m perfectly happy to be here, so you tell me all about Mithian and I will drip with sympathy.”

“Right,” she says, uncertain, and goes on to tell the story.

*

Somehow, Mithian seems to be everywhere even _more_ after that, were it possible. She somehow figures out where Elena and Arthur’s favorite study nook is and takes to poking her head in and waving and exchanging greetings whenever she goes by, and she gets in the habit of waylaying Elena after class to ask her how her reading’s coming along and what her plans for the weekend are.

Elena still has no idea what she’s doing and suspects that whatever it is, it’s a bad idea, but she still puts herself in the way of places she knows Mithian will be more often than she ought, and Arthur enables her shamelessly because it gives him more ammunition so she won’t mock him about Gwen, who’s turning out to be surprisingly geeky and thus a good match for Arthur.

It’s on one of these occasions of not-quite-stalking and enabling and incidental studying that Elena meets Merlin. She’s got her nose buried in a textbook so Arthur won’t see her blush and only registers him as a lanky, shy bloke before he sits down and Arthur prods her ankle with his foot. “Everything all right?” he inquires, and Arthur introduces them, then frames her whatever-is-going-on with Mithian in the least flattering manner possible while Merlin just sort of stares at them with his brows knit like he’s not sure what to make of them.

After a few exchanges, he manages to mention that he’s working on designs for a robot, so Elena abandons all pretense of study to hang over his shoulder and interrogate him about his robot (she would interrogate him about Gwen but then she thinks Arthur would do something dreadful to her and he is both inventive and vicious). Even though they’re talking about robots, it takes all of ten minutes to suss out that he’s head over heels for Arthur and that’s he’s hiding something from him, though she hasn’t figured out what yet. Merlin is clearly a darling and far too good for Arthur and she doesn’t want to embarrass him and get his heart broken, though, so Elena decides not to say anything unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

Mithian shows up about the time Elena notices that Arthur’s smiling indulgently where he thinks they won’t notice and listening to them instead of studying as he’s pretending to do, but before she can call him out on it or even try to get him to make eye contact so she can attempt silent communication, he says “Sighting,” as he always does when he sees Mithian, and Elena, distracted by too many things, yelps and falls off the couch.

She contemplates how filthy the floor is and how everything she’s wearing needs to go into the laundry immediately for an instant, and then segues directly into being mortified when Mithian, wearing the pristine white jacket that Elena would have stained to high heaven in an hour if she were wearing it, shows up at the door to their study nook. “Are you all right, Elena?” she asks.

It occurs to Elena that she is _still on the floor_ and that she might want to do something about it. “Yes, fine, um. I do this a lot, actually. And this time—Merlin! Merlin made me laugh. He makes robots.” She does her best to pretend that she absolutely means to be on the floor and that she isn’t desperately trying to direct Mithian’s attention elsewhere while she dies quietly of mortification.

Instead, Mithian barely glances at Merlin before giving Elena a slow, contemplative nod, as if Elena’s said something worthwhile instead of just babbling. “In that case, I’ll leave you to your … robots. Remember I’ve got office hours later if you need help with coursework.”

Elena nods weakly and barely waits until she’s out of sight to put her head back down on the floor. It isn’t as if she doesn’t already need a shower. “That was better than the last time,” Arthur points out as he stands up and pulls her to her feet, which is true. Last time she dropped coffee all over a textbook and her own lap.

“I’m going to die alone,” she says, smiling at him in thanks, and goes back to Merlin, who seems perfectly happy to chatter on about his work in between giving Arthur shy looks, and distracts herself with him for a while. Arthur joins in eventually, since he may not be into electronics but he is a terrible dork for all he won’t admit it and he can’t resist the siren call of his own kind for long. It’s probably why this correspondence with Gwen is going so well—normally Arthur loses interest fast if whoever he’s infatuated can’t keep up with him and Gwen seems to do remarkably well at it. As, for that matter, does Merlin. “He seems nice,” she says when Merlin finally excuses himself for dinner and she and Arthur wander to find something vaguely nutritious to eat (which will end up being Pot Noodle. It always does, on nights like this).

“He is nice,” says Arthur, which is odd. Generally he deflects questions like that. “I’m glad I’m getting to know him along with this whole thing with Gwen. I think he could be a good friend.”

 _You are going to break his heart,_ she thinks, but Merlin is really none of her business and Arthur really is enjoying his conversations with Gwen, so she’s not going to ruin it for him with guilt. “So how badly do you think I messed things up with Mithian?” she asks instead, and lets him link his arm with hers.

*

“Elena!” Mithian says, face lighting up with a smile, when Elena shows up at her door during her office hours. “You are saving me from grading some absolutely dire assignments—not yours, don’t worry, I’m being a second pair of eyes on some from an intro to politics course. Anyway, I couldn’t be happier to see you.”

“You’re wearing glasses,” Elena says intelligently, because this is just not _fair_.

Mithian just laughs. “Yes, I am. Won’t you sit down? What can I do for you?”

Unlike the chairs in most graduate student offices, uncomfortable and stuffed into the tiny windowless rooms, Mithian’s isn’t covered with papers and books that have to be shifted before Elena can take a seat. She sits. “I just came to return your book,” she says, rummaging around in her satchel. “It was really interesting, I’m sorry I didn’t get it done before.”

“No problem at all, I do remember how hard it is to fit in extracurricular reading around everything else. I’m pleased to discuss it now, if you’ve got the time.”

She does in fact have the time, and she even studied notecards about interesting points from the book in case she froze up and couldn’t remember any of it. “Sure, that sounds fine to me. What do you want to discuss?”

Mithian smiles and shakes her head. “I believe that’s my question. I proved at length during my lecture that I like discussing the marriage alliances in Medieval Europe, but that might not be your primary interest.”

“I did like those parts. Oh, and Rome, I liked the parts about Rome as well!” she says, and that starts off a rousing discussion of the use of marriage in politics in different eras and societies that lasts and hour and makes Elena forget all of her cue cards because Mithian seems to have a genius for figuring out what Elena means when she gets to babbling and has to rephrase things because they stop making sense.

“No, if you like Marie Antoinette you are absolutely going to love Madame de Pompadour and all the rest of them, I promise,” Mithian says what must be an hour later, long after her office hours are meant to be done. “It’s not like the marriage alliances in a lot of fundamental ways, and Doctor Annis always scolds me for buying into pop history, but I just think the scandal is all so delicious, and anyway we’ve got to be cognizant of how people like mistresses can change politics.” She winks, and Elena thinks she might make a muffled whimpering sort of noise. “And this one’s a bit sexy.”

“Arthur’s going to judge me forever,” she says, but she puts the book in her satchel, since it will be nice to have an excuse to come back for another conversation.

Mithian stands up when she does, taking her glasses off and packing up her things. Elena shifts guiltily, feeling a bit awful for keeping her when she’s probably got things to do. “Who’s Arthur?” Mithian asks as she sweeps her papers into a stack. “Boyfriend?”

“God, no. Best friend, though. I’m … I’m gay.” She swears it isn’t wishful thinking when she sees Mithian pause at that. “And his love life is complicated right now. He’s got a thing for this girl, but her best friend is half in love with him, and … you really don’t care about any of that.”

“I do like gossip,” says Mithian, which isn’t an answer at all and is thus unfair. “And I didn’t realize you were as well. I haven’t seen you at LGBT Soc events, you ought to come sometimes. We don’t do a great deal but it’s a nice bunch of people.”

Elena shrugs and pulls her jacket on, having shucked it after ten minutes of conversation when Mithian showed no signs of trying to wind down. “Leon Knightley—he mentioned that he knows you, I think, or at least knows of you—is my other best friend, and I know his boyfriend, and Arthur’s bi, so we sort of have our own miniature LGBT Soc all to ourselves.”

“That won’t help you meet girls, though,” Mithian points out. “We’d—they’d love you, there. You should think about coming.”

She fiddles with her satchel instead of letting Mithian see how red she goes at that. “I’m not very good in situations like that. I generally like getting to know people better one-on-one. Arthur’s always got to drag me to parties.”

“Yes, one-on-one is always the best way, but you could at least meet some candidates. If you wanted to, I mean, I know not everyone’s ready to bring a girlfriend home or anything.”

Elena wishes desperately to fall through the floor or disappear or suddenly turn into a cockatoo or _something_. “No, it’s not that, my dad’s always asking if I’ve met any girls. I’m just awkward, I suppose. Why try to talk it up so much?” She tries out a smile. “Meet your girlfriend there or something?”

Mithian laughs, but her shoulders are tense. “No, I’m eternally single, I’m afraid. Married to my dissertation, and I sometimes get some ribbing about being anti-feminist by being a woman in this field and studying marriage alliances of the past and not anything more modern. So I suppose that’s something I ought to warn you about, before trying to tempt you into my area of study.”

“The ones that matter don’t mind,” she says more firmly than she means to. “You like it, and that’s the important thing.”

“You are so sweet,” Mithian says, and she sounds shocked about it, not patronizing or deflecting or anything, just honest surprise like she wasn’t expecting that. Elena clutches more firmly at her bag while Mithian finishes packing up her things and puts on her own coat. “Thank you for coming in, this has been lovely and I hope you enjoy the second book as much.” She pauses. “Would you like to—”

Because Arthur has the worst timing in the world, Elena’s phone picks that moment to go off, loud and cheery. “Oh, shit, sorry,” she blurts, and grabs for it to silence it and hope for the end of the sentence.

“No, it was nothing at all, you answer your phone and I’ll see you in class,” says Mithian, and gestures her out the door while Elena fumbles her phone open and greets Arthur.

It takes at least three exchanges before she can parse anything Arthur is saying.

*

“I asked Gwen out,” says Arthur a few evenings later when Elena’s got her nose buried in a book about kings’ mistresses and he’s at least in theory working on his paper about the _Canterbury Tales_.

She immediately fumbles the book and loses her place, which he was probably counting on. Arthur likes planning his statements to have an impact. “You didn’t tell me that! You didn’t even tell me you were planning it! What did she say?”

Arthur’s shoulders are tense, which isn’t a great sign, but if she’d said no outright he would be bemoaning his fate. “Yes, but she asked if we could make it a group occasion so she doesn’t get too nervous. I said yes, of course. Do you want to come? I’m inviting Leon and Elyan as well, and she’s bringing Merlin and both of their roommates and some friend of theirs, I think.”

“Yeah, I’ll come. Chat with Merlin if no one else,” she says with a shrug, since knowing Arthur he doesn’t want her to make a big deal of being sympathetic.

She’s known him for probably ten years now, but she still doesn’t know quite what to make of the expression on his face. “I hope it goes well,” he says before she can ask, a lot more seriously than she was expecting. “It’s been a while since I could have conversations with someone like this.”

Elena makes a few sympathetic noises and goes back to her book, scrawling all over post-its instead of the margins since she doesn’t want to return Mithian’s book all marked up. Sometimes she’ll run into an underline or a line in Mithian’s neat handwriting, which she hadn’t in the first book, and it’s interesting, like reading it alongside her and when Arthur figures out what she keeps smiling foolishly over he just grins and ruffles her hair.

The pub night, when it comes, isn’t at all what Elena was expecting. Their groups of friends are vaguely acquainted, so it’s nice getting to spend time all as a big group (even missing Morgana, who’s the biggest bridge between Arthur’s group and Gwen’s, or at least was), and Elena splits her time between Freya, Gwen’s quiet roommate who seems upset with Merlin’s roommate, and the lads, who are talking footie. She talks a bit with Merlin, but he seems to be concentrating mostly on Arthur and Gwen, and Elena’s trying her hardest not to because Arthur gets snappish when he thinks she’s hovering.

Elena ends up excusing herself when Leon and Elyan do and letting them walk her back to her hall, if only so she won’t have to sit around while Arthur says his goodnights to Gwen. If he’s smart, he’ll kiss her and both of them will forget about the awkwardness (even if that makes her feel a bit bad for Merlin), and he wouldn’t want her around for that.

She’s got it all worked out in her head—the shy goodnight kiss, the late-night e-mail, the morning phonecall, perhaps breakfast together, because she’s an incurable romantic and she’s not afraid to admit it—so when her phone goes at ten, she answers it with a trill of “Well?”

“She ended it,” says Arthur, quiet and a bit stunned, and the whole happy little fantasy collapses neatly. “I e-mailed her last night to say I wanted to keep trying even though last night was bad, and a few minutes ago I got a message from her saying she can’t keep talking to me, it isn’t my fault, and she wishes me well.”

Elena breathes out, since that doesn’t sound like Gwen at all, at least not how she’d imagine it going unless something awful and dramatic happened. “Shit,” she says, since she can at least respond that much. “Want to come over to my room and watch movies and not think about it for a while?”

He sighs. “Yeah, that would be great. I just wish I knew what I’d _done_.”

“Didn’t she say it isn’t your fault?”

“When does anyone ever actually mean that?”

She pauses. “Point. But this is Gwen, I don’t know her very well but she doesn’t seem the sort to blow you off without good reason and it’s unlikely to be you because you haven’t actually done anything but woo her.”

“Have I mentioned you’re my favorite?” he asks, then sighs. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes. We’re going to watch things blow up, fair warning.”

“Can it be the Mythbusters blowing things up?”

“Just because you have a crush on that girl,” he mutters, but she knows him well enough to know that’s a capitulation so she just hangs up.

They end up spending most of the day curled up on Elena’s bed with a Mythbusters marathon, Arthur muttering occasionally about at least wanting to stay friends with “them” (“them,” Elena discovers within ten minutes, mostly means “Merlin” and not the whole lot of them, but she’s staying out of that because meddling is really not going to make anything better) and Elena reading the rest of the book Mithian lent her during the boring segments.

Sunday, Elena gets sick of Arthur whining that Gwen won’t answer the e-mail he sent asking if they can’t stay friends at least and goes to their study nook without informing him. He’ll know where she’s gone, of course, it isn’t as if she has many haunts around campus since she’s a creature of habit, but if she goes without telling him it means she isn’t in the mood and he’ll respect that, so she gets some schoolwork done, since the end of term is nearing and she’s spent most of it dealing with the panto-worthy romantic schemes of Arthur’s life and pining over her TA.

Mithian shows up halfway through the afternoon to get her coffee and beams and unpacks her books when she sees Elena there. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” She clears off half her table. “I’m annoyed with Arthur so I’m getting some work done.”

“I decided that if I spent five more minutes in my office on a weekend I would do something drastic, so here I am.” Mithian pulls out what looks like a bunch of article printouts. “Arthur’s the one I’ve met a few times, right? And he’s got that boyfriend who makes robots.”

“Oh, no, Merlin isn’t his boyfriend, Arthur’s got a massive crush on Merlin’s best friend only she broke up with him even though they aren’t dating and Merlin’s sort of in love with Arthur, and can you see why I’m a bit annoyed with all of it?”

Mithian laughs. “Yes, I think I can. I hope I’m not interrupting your hard-won solitude?”

Elena looks down at her books. “No, not at all. Your company is far preferable to his, right now. I just wish I’d known I was going to see you, I would have brought your book to return.”

“Oh, you finished it?” Mithian stops even pretending to look at her books. “Tell me all about what you thought of it, I’ve been hoping you’d finish it soon so we could have another chat.”

“I think I’d have to read more on the subject before I can say how I feel about the premise, but as a read it was a fun way to spend a couple of days. It’s all speculation, you know? I’m doing a lot of history with my politics and I like to have more primary sources than that before I decide how I think.”

She has no idea what the slightly dumbfounded expression on Mithian’s face means or what she ought to do about it, but after a few seconds Mithian breaks out into a smile, the same delighted one she got when Elena mustered up the courage to argue with her on a few points during their first conversation. “You’re right, that one doesn’t have too many primary sources. I suppose I thought I was giving you easy reading, and to be honest there isn’t much scholarship on the subject, just a lot of centuries-old tabloid articles, really. There has been some work on the influences geishas might have had in Japanese politics but I haven’t read too deeply into it since it’s a comparable subject but not quite the same.”

They end up spending two hours talking about the place of wives and mistresses and concubines in politics across the world throughout history, even though they’ve both got massive gaps in their knowledge (and Elena has more, and ends up with a list of books that Mithian is going to insist on lending her), and neither of them has gotten a bit of work done when Elena’s phone goes with Leon’s ringtone. “Arthur’s been sulking and I think Elyan might punch him,” he says through a sigh when she makes an apologetic face and picks up. “He says you’re studying, but would you mind coming for dinner?”

“I’ll come,” she says, and tries not to look at Mithian till she’s hung up so she won’t catch how disappointing that is. When she looks up, Mithian’s got her eyebrows raised in inquiry. “My presence is required at Leon’s place, his boyfriend is the brother of the girl who sort of broke it off with Arthur and there might be violence.” Mithian just blinks, and Elena makes a face. “It’s all hideously complicated, I know.”

Mithian laughs softly. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. Go on, keep them from killing each other, and I’ll see you in class. Or maybe in office hours? I’ll collect those books to lend you, most of them are buried in piles around my flat.”

“Don’t go to any trouble,” says Elena, stuffing her books into her bag.

“It’s worth a bit of trouble,” Mithian answers, and Elena doesn’t know what to say to that, so she just waves awkwardly and flees.

*

“It was Merlin all along,” Arthur says flatly three days later after pounding her door down and interrupting the reading she’d been doing after stopping by Mithian’s office and getting a stack of books.

Elena briefly wonders if he’s going to tell her that it was never Gwen he had feelings for, but Merlin instead, in which case she’s going to have to kill him, but he’s wearing his murder face and not his epiphany face, so it’s obviously something else. “What was Merlin all along? Feel free to come in, by the way,” she adds, since he’s already gone past her to sit in her desk chair and scowl at the floor.

“He was the one writing the e-mails.” Elena finishes shutting the door before she turns around to stare at him. “Gwen felt awkward—apparently she’s got a boyfriend, by the way, or she’s reconnecting with an ex, or something, but that doesn’t really matter since I was never really getting to know her anyway. She asked Merlin to write the e-mails, and he did.”

She hisses out a breath and tries to think of what she can possibly say to that. “Are you okay?” she tries at last.

“Other than feeling like a total idiot, you mean?”

So not okay, then, but that’s only to be expected. Elena spends a few seconds debating tactics before settling on a line of inquiry that she hopes will be productive. “Which one of them are you madder at?”

“Gwen, I think. I wish she’d just _told_ me she was still in love with her ex-boyfriend, because then I might have …”

“Might have found Merlin on your own,” Elena finishes as gently as she can.

Arthur doesn’t look at her. “I’m mad at him too,” he says, but he sounds more sulky than actually annoyed. “He lied to me.”

“Believe me, I’m going to have a chat with him about that,” she assures him, because he and Leon treat her like their kid sister but that doesn’t mean she can’t be protective of them as well, especially in Morgana’s absence. “But he likes you, you know? I didn’t mention it because you wanted Gwen, but he likes you.”

“I’d … he mentioned it, when he told me earlier. I’d stopped him to tell him I still want to be friends with him and Gwen, and he …” Arthur sighs. “I can’t now, though, I’ll seem shallow if I switch from one to the other of them just like that.”

Elena finally manages to put a bookmark in her book. “Knowing that Merlin wrote the e-mails, then, do you think you would want to date him? I mean, you’ve spent the last few weeks talking about how much you love the e-mails, but that doesn’t mean you can automatically switch like that.”

“I think so.” Arthur looks down at his hands and smiles. “Yes. Once I’m being offended.”

Elena smiles in return and sits down on the bed. “What are you going to do about it, then?”

“I think,” says Arthur with a grin that means he’s probably already getting over his embarrassment, “that I’m going to make another mix CD.”

Of course, because he’s Arthur and quite ridiculous about everything, it takes him almost two days to stop sulking, the rest of the week to finish the mix, and then he sneaks it to Merlin through his roommate instead of giving it to him like a sensible person.

Merlin, on the other hand, has some sense (she knew she liked him for a reason), so when he shows up while Elena and Arthur are in their usual study spot, Elena isn’t the least bit surprised when he and Arthur manage to have a bit of garbled conversation before they start kissing. Elena lets it last for about thirty seconds before they start attracting too many stares, so she clears her throat and once they’re finished looking besotted at each other, they come sit down on a couch with her, and none of them gets a bit of studying done.

Mithian shows up when Elena’s just starting to wonder if she should make herself scarce, two cups from the coffee place in her hands instead of one. “I thought I heard your voice, Elena, so I grabbed you a cup of cocoa, that’s your poison of choice, right?” she says after watching them all in apparent confusion for a few seconds.

Elena inches away from Arthur and Merlin, who apparently have taken all of two hours to turn into obnoxious newlyweds and are giving her significant looks, and smiles at Mithian. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t, but I thought I might as well.” Elena gets up and goes over to take the cocoa, since Mithian doesn’t seem inclined to come any closer. When she gets there, Mithian is still looking over her shoulder. “I thought you said they weren’t dating,” she whispers, breaking out into a smile.

“It’s a complicated story,” Elena whispers in return. “I’ll tell you about it sometime if you like.”

“You’d better.” Mithian shakes herself and takes a step back. “Anyway, I just thought I’d do something nice for you, you get back to your studying and I’ll see you in class.”

“Right, of course.” Elena lifts the cocoa. “Thanks again for this, by the way, I’ll owe you a drink.”

“I’ll take you up on it,” says Mithian, and walks away.

Arthur’s smirking by the time Elena gets over to the couch again. “She likes you, you know. Perhaps you ought to do something about that.”

“I hate you, Merlin’s my new favorite,” she says, but she’s smiling.

*

From there, it feels like the rest of term goes by in a blur. Arthur and Merlin are suddenly attached at the hip, so Elena spends a great deal of time getting to know Merlin’s friends in between studying for her courses and reading the books that Mithian keeps lending her. She and Gwen get along much better when Gwen isn’t trying to fall in love with Arthur, so they end up chatting about Gwen’s not-quite-boyfriend, not-quite-ex in India a lot while waiting around for their respective best friends.

Things are odd with Mithian, though, and Elena feels like an idiot for noting that things are odd with her politics TA, but they _are_. Mithian keeps lending her books and inviting her to office hours and occasionally stopping by with cocoa when Elena is trying to study while Arthur and Merlin chatter away at each other, but she’s taken to stopping herself smiling too much when Elena tries to chat about things not-politics-related and gently encouraging her out the door, which is both baffling and upsetting. Doctor Annis starts giving her odd looks during lectures and Elena just shrinks into her seat with mortification. Obviously Mithian has figured out that Elena’s picking out curtains (well, not really, her friends universally agree that Elena isn’t allowed to pick out things like curtains and bedspreads and carpets and other things that might someday conceivably be expected to match) and is trying to discourage her while being nice and Doctor Annis has figured this out and the whole thing is horrible.

(“Hmm,” says Leon when she announces this theory, with great drama, over dinner one night. “But she’s still bringing you cocoa, right?”)

This is why it’s something of a surprise when, five minutes after leaving her politics exam on the last day before the holiday break, Elena almost gets run down on the pavement outside her class building. She manages to turn around and there’s Mithian, jacket half-unbuttoned and looking less composed than Elena’s ever seen her. “Did I forget something?” she asks, although it doesn’t make sense because she isn’t leaving for two more days and promised to stop by Mithian’s office to return the last of the books before she goes.

“You aren’t my student anymore,” says Mithian, and kisses her.

“No, no I’m not,” Elena agrees a few seconds later when they pull apart long enough to get their noses aligned properly, and then kisses her back properly even though anyone walking by is probably going to stare.

Mithian’s the one that pulls back, when someone walking past whistles at them. “I’m so glad I hadn’t got it wrong, I thought you liked me but you were my student so I couldn’t until after you took the final, just in case, even though Doctor Annis told me I wasn’t allowed to grade anything of yours a month ago.”

“Wait, she what?” Elena covers her face since she knows it’s probably red as anything; that would do a lot to explain the gimlet stares she keeps getting from her professor. “Oh God, I’ll never be able to take a course with her again, will I?”

“Not if I’m her TA,” Mithian agrees cheerfully, and that starts the kissing off again. This time it lasts until someone else from the class comes out, having finished his own exam, and drops his books all over the pavement when he sees them. Elena ducks her head, but Mithian is completely poised, of course. “Have a good break,” she says, and threads her arm through Elena’s. “I’ve been released from duty for the next few hours before we have to mark exams, would you like to get some cocoa? Or a late lunch, or something? I’ve been wanting to take you out on a date for ages now.”

She could ask for cocoa, since she knows Arthur and Merlin are planning to be in the study area for the afternoon to prepare for their last exams and that they’d be glad to see her with Mithian, but she wants to keep it to herself for at least a few hours before all her friends start teasing her over it, especially since they’re going to have a few weeks of not being anywhere near each other after this first date. “Lunch sounds lovely,” she says, even though she ate before the exam, and lets Mithian take her hand and start leading her away.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Words That I Can't Say](https://archiveofourown.org/works/464106) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)




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